Tipp-Ex YouTube campaign: ‘Great interactivity on every level’

Victoria Gallardo (right) says the Tipp-Ex advert is one of the best online ads to date

Tippexperience, the campaign for BIC correction product Tipp-Ex, is aptly signed ‘Tipp-Ex: White And Rewrite’ and is aimed at the back-to-school market.

Parisian agency Buzzman created a series of face-to-face encounters between an amusingly unrealistic bear and a hunter, offering the viewers the opportunity to choose the ending they would like to see.

‘What works the most on the internet? Animals that perform stupid tricks? Sex? Violence? Dancing people? We used everything,’ says Georges Mohammed-Cherif, creative director at Buzzman.

One of the possible encounters (Pic: YouTube)

The film begins as the hunter reaches for the Tipp-Ex Mini Mouse product and erases the word ‘shoots’, inviting the viewer to replace it with a word of their choice. And there are plenty to choose from. The ad features more than 40 different endings, including hugs, tickles, cooks and a comedy explicit content sticker for the more risqué suggestions.

‘There seems to be a love of animals in ads at the moment: meerkats, pandas, a singing zebra, a drumming gorilla and now a performing bear,’ says Gallardo.

‘It’s a tough brief to get people talking about a utilitarian stationery product, but in the right creative hands you end up with one of the best and funniest online ads to date.’

The open-ended challenge of trying to find all the filmed variations has ensured high levels of engagement.

‘It’s more than just having a fun time watching a video, it’s giving people the opportunity to play, ask for something and have it for real,’ says Mohammed-Cherif.

‘We said to ourselves it would be brilliant if we could erase the title of a video and rewrite another one instead. We would become the director; the master of YouTube.’

In fewer than five days, the teaser amassed more that 4million hits in more than 200 countries, was shared more than 120,000 times via Facebook and was tweeted more than 10,000 times.

‘A hunter shoots a bear! has been the talk of the office over the past week,’ says Gallardo. ‘It pays great attention to detail and is well executed. It’s also an excellent example of how to use interactivity online. Great creativity on every level.’